Tea of the Week for April 22, 2019: The Night is Dark & Full of Terrors Honeybush/Rooibos Blend!

The Night is Dark & Full of Terrors Honeybush/Rooibos Blend!

Tea Description: For our Fourth tea of this Game of Thrones series, I went with a Honeybush/Rooibos blend - and a phrase that we heard several times from Melisandre (aka the Red Woman or Witch) while aligned with/working with Stannis Baratheon. I liked the phrase and thought it would make an interesting name for a tea, so I decided I'd create a tea around the name.

My original idea for this tea was to create a blend with a black tea base (because "dark") but I had my mind set on two black teas already (I Drink & I Know Things and Mother of Dragons) so I almost forgot about using this name for a tea, until after sorting through some of my other ideas for teas - for future blends - I thought that the idea of this honeybush/rooibos blend would work wonderfully with the name.

I started with organic honeybush and rooibos, then added rum and vanilla essences (don't worry, it's alcohol-free), ginger root & dried lime wedges. The basic inspiration behind it is a Dark & Stormy cocktail, which seems to me to fit in really well with the name "The Night is Dark & Full of Terrors" - right?

This is really tasty - a strong note of both rum and vanilla - while going a bit softer on both the ginger and lime . . . as I have done at least one or two teas featuring ginger and lime in the last year or so, I decided to go a little lighter on these, making them more like an accent flavor than a key component to the cup. 

This is all organic, VEGAN, gluten free, allergen free & yes, alcohol free!

organic ingredients: honeybush, rooibos, ginger root, limes & natural flavors

I am liking this blend a lot - the more I sip on it, the more I like it!

As I've said many times before, I'm not much of an alcohol drinker - I consider myself to be more of a TEA-totaler - but the few times that I've created cocktail inspired tea blends, I've enjoyed them. Therefore, I can't say that I've personally ever tasted a Dark & Stormy cocktail before, because I haven't. In fact, I had never really heard of one before until I came across the cocktail recipe. 

The recipe that I found for the cocktail was a combination of Rum, Ginger Ale (or Ginger Beer) and lime juice. So as you can see, I took some LiberTEAS with the recipe and made it something of my own creation. Instead of ginger ale sort of flavors, I went with ginger and vanilla. I went a little lighter on the lime. I wanted to focus more on the rum and the vanilla rather than the ginger (or the lime) but I put enough ginger in there to give it a little peppery kick. 

It came out quite nice - rather unique - and unlike anything I've ever come across in my years of drinking tea. And I think that's a really good thing!

to brew: Give the blend a good shake (or stir) before you measure it. Use 4g to 12 ounces of very hot water (195°F) and let it steep for 8 - 10 minutes (I steeped it for 9 minutes), strain and let it cool for at least 5 minutes. Enjoy!

This doesn't need sweetening - it tastes really good without! - but I found that with a wee bit of sugar (about half a teaspoon), the vanilla notes really pop!